Interview with #GirlGetOutside: Fun Facts and Challenges I've Faced

#GirlGetOutside asked to do an interview with me a few months ago and I loved sharing my story. Check out the interview below to get to know me a little better; understand where I came from, my background, what motivates me, and what I've been up to!

Q1: Tell us a little about yourself!

Hey guys! I’m Erin. I’m an adventure seeker and a lover of the outdoors, people, music, extreme sports, and dancing. I grew up on the beaches of Malibu, California and spent my summers in water skiing and wake boarding on the Colorado River in Parker, Arizona. My favorite sports include: Wake boarding (this will always be my one true love), skiing, snowboarding, long boarding, surfing, kite-surfing (my new one love), and working out/ running!

Some things you may not know about me:

I have a fraternal twin brother (@staffan_edenholm) and I’m dating an identical twin (@chrisfarro).
I’m obsessed with elephants (my dad used to tell me that they made dwarf elephants when I was little so I asked for one for my birthday and Christmas for years – brutal).
I have dual citizenship – Brazilian and American (my mom moved to Brazil when she was 15 years old with a dollar in her pocket and made a beautiful life for herself!)
I used to ride dirt bikes – I grew up with 3 brothers!
My dad is a RaceCar driver (or was a RaceCar driver)
I love to bake!
I live in my boyfriends van in San Francisco! It’s a Dodge Ram 3500 with a camper conversion.
All the way up until I was 20 years old I thought I wanted to be a doctor. I got my degree in Biology with an emphasis in Anatomy and Physiology. Now I work in Social Media Marketing.

Q2: If someone asked 10 year old Erin what she wanted to do when she grew up, what would she have responded?

Circa 2008 - Dirt Biking in Parker, Arizona

"It’s funny you ask, I love reflecting on this question. When I was 10 years old, I was obsessed with wake boarding and dirt biking (I learned both when I was 8 years old) and I was always going to the race car track with my dad, so I was always around extreme sports. I would always look at the RedBull Wings Team and think, I want to be like them! I just wanted to be in the extreme sport industry. But as I got older and excelled in school, I fell in love with science and math and I also knew that I loved being around people and wanted to make people's lives better, so my parents encouraged me to go down the medical route and aim to be a Doctor. I realized that the medical route was not for me when I did a medical internship in the Azores, Portugal (basically the Hawaiian Islands off of Portugal). I bought my first GoPro for that trip and all I wanted to do was travel, explore, film, and document my trip! I was not passionate about going to the hospital every day!"

Q3: How did you get to your path now working for GoPro?

My first GoPro photo! Shot on a GoPro HERO3 in 2012!

Four things lead me to where I am today: I followed my passion, I worked really damn hard, I made connections, and I networked! Sometimes it is all about who you know. I was at the right place at the right time and the hiring manager at GoPro saw something in me. She didn’t care that I had little to no experience in Social Media Marketing, she saw that I was extremely passionate about action sports, represented the brand well, and she knew that as a Biology major, I knew how to work hard! My biggest piece of advise for someone who is trying to get a job in a different field than they majored is – Take your past job experiences or even life experiences, put them on your resume, and position them to show your skill sets and personality. Companies want to work with passionate, hard-working people. You can learn anything!

Q4: What do you do for GoPro?

I ask myself this everyday… No I’m joking! My title is the Social Advocacy Manager meaning I head up our group of Social Ambassadors or Influencers. We call them externally “GoPro Family Members”. I was hired to start, grow, and collect a group of the world’s most badass and influential GoPro content creators. Today, we have about 500 GoPro Family Members in 23 countries worldwide! A bit of my day to day looks like this: relationship management, featuring our GoPro Family Members on our channels and the local channels (social exposure), hooking them up with product and GoPro swag, and planning GoPro events around the world. I think my favorite part about my job is the relationships I get to build and the love I feel from all of our Ambassadors! Although I am not a doctor and not saving lives, I do feel like I am connecting with people and making their lives happier (at least I hope so!)

Q5: Have you always been athletic/into action sports?

Yes! As I kind of explained in the questions above I grew up around action and extreme sports! On top of my action sport love, I couldn’t get away from team sports in High School. I ran cross country and track and also played water polo!

Q6: Favorite place you’ve traveled?

Horseback Riding, Dominican Republic style...

This is such a hard one! I honestly fall in love with every destination I go to in different ways. I would say my favorite place I’ve traveled to is split between the Dominican Republic (Cabarete) and Panama. Maybe it’s the latin culture that runs through my veins but I also just love the beach, tropical vibes, and people. The best about Cabarete was that you get both wind for kiteboarding and waves for surfing! You can check out my Travel Guide for Cabarete here!

Q7: Who or what inspires you?

Who inspires me-

The closest people to me inspire me the most. My mom is probably my number one inspiration. I have never met a woman who has given her whole heart to her children. She is the strongest woman I know and she has taught me to be strong, independent, confidant, and most importantly humble. My grandparents live in one of the poorest towns in Brazil, their kitchen was outside and they had no plumbing in their house when I was a child. My mom came here to work when she was 15 years old to send money back home and provide for her family. If she has taught me anything it’s to appreciate everything in life because things can change, expect nothing, forget about material things, work extremely hard, be humble + kind, and love deeply.

What inspires me-

I just love these questions. Keep them coming, it’s a great exercise of the mind and self reflection. As an extrovert, I would say people and the energy they bring to the environment around me is inspiring. I am inspired by love, kindness, and mostly, people who know what they want and go after it!

Q8: Do you face any challenges?

Thank you for asking this question. I feel today that social media is flooded with all of the amazing things that people have in their life, all the incredible trips they go on, or how good they feel but not enough is told about real life struggles or challenges. This sometimes causes people to compare their lives to others because they think everyone’s life is just perfect.

I am one of those people – I only share the good with my followers, I like to make people feel good and want to inspire people to live their best life. I’ve held off on sharing my challenges with my followers because I don’t want people to petty me or feel sorry for me. But I want to work on a way to position my challenges that I face with my audience in a way that they don’t feel bad for me, but so they feel with me, understand where I am coming from, and connect with me on a deeper level. I want to work on my strategy and start telling more of the challenges I’ve faced in my life or in my day to day life. I guess I can start here, in this interview.

Some challenges I face are struggles with a separated family, relationships people who really show interest in my life but love me in their own way, and of course doubt. Doubt in what the future holds or if I’m on the right path. To close it up, I want to share some things that help me get through these challenges. Since my parents divorce (four years ago), I’ve learned that you cannot control the uncontrollable, your parents are going to make their own decisions. Not everyone gives love and accepts love the same way that you do, not even your parents, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t love you. Just live and work hard and life will flow. I think when you are younger, you picture graduating college and having it all figured out. But I’ve learned that at every stage in life you are always learning, always doubting, and always growing, changing. You never really have it figured out the way you thought you would (even at 50 years old) and that is okay. Embrace the unknown and live for the present!

Q9: What’s on repeat on your Spotify?

It is always changing but right 3 songs I will ALWAYS love are: 1) “Another Love” by Tom Odell, Zwette Edit, 2) I’m Going Down (Bruce Springsteen Cover) by Florence Welch and Kid Harpoon, 3) Tomorrow by Shakey Graves

Q10: What is next for you?

I am going to be spending the month of February in Oahu, Hawaii with my love, Chris. My goal is to work on sharing more stories and adventures on this blog and create at least one video for my YouTube channel per month.

In the spring, I plan on spending a few months in South America living with a host family in Brazil, volunteering in orphanages, and attending a language school. It has been my number one goal to become bilingual and fluent in Portuguese and immerse myself in the Brazilian culture.

I'll be freelancing and doing contract work along the way! Follow along the adventure by subscribing to my blog and following me on Instagram @erin_edenholm.